Social Skills Development

Social Skills training

Children and adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often have difficulty making and keeping friends. They often struggle to manage themselves effectively in social situations and therefore experience social rejection and isolation. This rejection causes children immense psychological and emotional pain and contributes to confidence and self esteem issues. Our ADHD social skills program is designed to help children become socially intelligent by teaching them to behave and relate to others in more socially accepted ways.

The Positive Kids ADHD social skills program includes the following in our curriculum:
• Learning to listen and engage in conversation with peers
• Entering new groups and fitting in
• How to offer and receive opinions, criticism and praise
• Exercising patience and managing frustration with others
• Interrupting appropriately and offering suggestions
• Making/keeping friends and dealing with conflict
• Following instructions/rules when working with others
• Solving problems/negotiating during times of disagreement
• Handling rejection, teasing, bullying, rumours/gossip & cyber bullying
• Improve conversational skills - Start, enter & exit conversations between peers
• Making the right choices in selection of friends
• Managing reputation when things go wrong
• Effectively using humour and assessing humour of others
• Organising successful get-togethers with friends
• Being a good sport when playing games and/or sports with friends

The model includes dyadic options (where 2 children are matched) as well as small groups where 3-8 children work together. Dyadic coaching and groups run for 60-90 minutes for 6-10 weeks. Our all groups are facilitated by ADHD Professional Dyadic Coaches and ADHD group facilitators. Social skills are practiced through:
• Modeling
• Role-playing
• Videos and Movies
• Activities
• Exercises